Read Ebook: Amy Harrison; or Heavenly Seed and Heavenly Dew by Unknown

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Ebook has 179 lines and 20963 words, and 4 pages

The church bells were ringing, the classes broke up to form into marching order, and the lesson was over.

AT HOME.

And what did the children think of Mrs. Mordaunt's words? We will follow them home and see. Little Jane Hutton, I am afraid, forgot them; for during the service her eyes kept wandering round the church in search of gay dresses and bonnets, and watching what her school-fellows thought of her own new ribbons.

Meantime, Amy was feeling very differently. She thought how good it was of Jesus, the Son of God, to care about the love of little children, and to watch the good seed sown in their hearts, and nourish it, and water it, and make it grow; and she thought that it would be the happiest thing in the world to be his disciple, and to do what he wished, and be loved and approved by him; and she resolved to try. So as they walked home, she planned that she would go into a quiet place in the garden, under the trees, and pray to God.

A NEW LEAF, AND HOW IT WAS FILLED.

But on entering the cottage, Amy's spirits received a sudden check; the family were all at breakfast, and her father spoke rather severely to her about her never being in time for anything. Amy did not answer; she felt ill-used, and she was too much hurt to say what she had been about; so she sat down in silence to her breakfast. Kitty was beside her, yawning as if she had only just got out of bed. "Yet," thought Amy, "no one ever scolds her; it is no good to try to please people." So Amy sat, getting angrier and angrier, and not enjoying her breakfast a bit, and thinking everybody very unkind, although she said nothing; you might, perhaps, have thought she bore the rebuke very meekly. Now, I do not mean to deny that this was a trial for poor Amy. It is a very great trial to be blamed and misunderstood when we have been seeking to please people; but it is the pride of our own hearts which makes it so trying. If we were lowly, harsh words would not have half the power to wound us. Amy felt this, and she felt she was doing wrong, but that only made her more vexed; for instead of acknowledging her fault to herself, and asking God to forgive her and strengthen her against it, she went on brooding over her wrongs and nursing her anger in silence. After breakfast, Kitty asked her if she had been working in their garden all this time.

"No," said Amy shortly.

"Have you been learning your lessons for next Sunday, then?"

"No," answered Amy still more sharply.

Kitty looked puzzled for a minute, and then she laughed, and said, "I can't see what good you've got, Amy, by being in such haste to get up. You seem to have done nothing but lose your temper."

This was altogether more than Amy could bear; she made a bitter reply, and a quarrel began between the sisters, which made their walk to school very uncomfortable. It was so different from yesterday, Amy felt ready to cry, but she was ashamed that Kitty should see. Poor Amy entered the school-room with a sore heart. A bad temper is not likely to get sweet of itself, so Amy went on more and more discontented with herself, and her lessons, and everything else, until the class was called to read their morning lesson. The text from the Bible which stood at the head of the lesson happened to be, "For if you, from your heart, forgive not your brother his trespasses, how can your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses?" Amy had to read these words, and they struck to her heart; she thought of what sinful and angry feelings she had been cherishing, and how much she had to ask God to forgive her, and how little she felt inclined to forgive in her sister and others; and afterwards, as she wrote her copy, hot tears fell on the page, and she confessed her fault in her heart to God, and begged him to forgive her. Then she felt happier at once. After school, one of her school-fellows was kept in to finish a sum; she was crying, and did not seem able to do it, so Amy went quietly to her, and showed her the way, and then danced off to the play-ground. On their way home she had a harder struggle to make, and that was to tell Kitty she was sorry for her hasty words; but she conquered, and Kitty having confessed that she too had been in the wrong, the sisters felt happy again together.

This was true repentance; it was a sorrow for and confession of sin, and then forsaking the sin; it was a change of mind. That evening Amy felt very serious when she thought over the day's doings; she was weaker than she had thought--it was harder to do right than she had believed; but she resolved to try harder again to-morrow. So she went to bed hopeful, although rather sad. We shall see how her resolutions were carried out.

TRY AGAIN.

"Why, I thought your basket was quite full," said Kitty.

"So it was," exclaimed little Lucy, "but she has half emptied it to fill mine."

The children all loved Amy for doing this, and wondered how it was they had not thought of little Lucy before; so now, many of them insisted on pouring some blackberries into Lucy's basket, and giving part of Amy's back to her. In this way Lucy and Amy's stores were soon the largest of the whole, and the children separated in good humour with each other and everything.

As Amy and Kitty entered the garden, the first thing that caught Amy's eye was her little baby sister sitting on her little chair under the window. On each side of the door grew a little rose tree, one of which belonged to Amy and one to Kitty. Amy's was a red rose. The flowers were nearly all gone, but one had lingered behind the rest. Amy had watched it with especial care: she had plucked off all the dead flowers around it, and this morning she had been thinking it would just be in beautiful bloom by Sunday, that she might take it to school as a present for Mrs. Mordaunt. And now there sat the baby with that very bud in her lap quietly picking it to pieces, and holding up the scattered leaves in Amy's face, she lisped, "Pretty, pretty!" Amy was too angry and too vexed to think, and it was of no use to scold the baby, so she snatched the rose from the baby's hands, and said, "You good-for-nothing, naughty little thing;" and then she burst into tears. The baby began to cry too, and their mother came out to know what was the matter. "O mother, how could you?" sobbed Amy passionately. "Why did you let baby sit close to my rose-bush--my beautiful rose? I had been saving it all the week for Mrs. Mordaunt--and it was my last."

Mrs. Harrison tried to comfort Amy; and Kitty offered her the best flower in her garden. They both felt very sorry for her. But Amy was not to be comforted, and so they gave up trying. Poor Amy's evening was quite spoilt,--not so much, I think, by the loss of her rose as by the loss of her temper.

THE TRUTH SETTING FREE.

The next day she awoke, out of spirits and out of temper. She did not see why she should always work, while Kitty was enjoying herself in bed. She forgot the joy of serving others, and thought it very hard others should not try to serve her. We are apt to be very strict about other people's duties when we forget our own. So Amy lay in bed until the last moment, and then hurried on her clothes, and hurried over her work, and what was worse, hurried over her prayers, and thus went out to meet the day's temptations unarmed.

It never improves the temper to be hurried; and Amy was still further tried this morning by her father, who was in haste to be off to his work, and wondered why she was so slow.

"It's of no use," grumbled Amy to herself, "to try to do right and please everybody. The more one does, the more people expect. Nobody thinks of scolding Kitty for being slow."

At last her mother went out, and Kitty was sent to the bakehouse, and Amy was left alone to rock the cradle and watch that the kettle did not boil over.

Amy had much rather not have been left alone just then; her own thoughts were not at all pleasant; but as she was alone she could not help thinking. At first she thought how unkind every one was, and of all the wrongs she had had to bear,--of Kitty's laziness, of her mother's rebukes, and then of her beautiful rose, and the naughty baby. "Kitty and the baby might do just what they liked, but if she did the least thing wrong she was scolded and punished." But this thought of the rose led her back to Mrs. Mordaunt's lesson on Sunday. Had the good seed borne good fruit this week,--this week that was to have been the beginning of a new life? Had it led her to overcome one fault, to be a step nearer to God and goodness than before? Yet she had prayed and tried. What was then wanting? She was afraid she never should be God's happy child, she was so full of faults, and no one helped her to overcome them; and yet it was wretched to be as she was. What should she do?

So she sat rocking the cradle, and thinking of her resolutions and her failures until the tears rolled fast over her cheeks, and all the proud heart within her was melted into sorrow. As she sat thus, her elbows on her knees and her hands hiding her face, she heard a gentle voice at the door. She looked up. It was Mrs. Mordaunt asking for her mother. Amy was ashamed to be seen crying, and rose quickly, and answered as briskly as she could. But Mrs. Mordaunt saw she was unhappy, and she came forward, and laying her hand kindly on her shoulder she asked what was the matter.

Amy's tears flowed faster than ever now, and as soon as she could speak she sobbed out in a faint voice, "O ma'am, I cannot do right,--I cannot be good." Mrs. Mordaunt sat down beside her and said, "Don't despair, my child; you know the little song you sing in school. Try again and again until you succeed. Every one succeeds who goes on trying."

"But I have tried again and again," said poor Amy, "and I only get worse and worse. In the very moment when I want it, the strength goes away."

"Our own strength always will," said the lady. "Have you remembered to ask God for his strength? Do you remember what I told you about the little seed? its enemies are stronger than itself, but God is stronger than its enemies."

"I have prayed, ma'am," said Amy mournfully, "but I am ashamed to ask God any more. I have done what he tells us not so very often, I am afraid he never can love me;" and Amy cried bitterly.

"My child," said Mrs. Mordaunt, taking her hand, "if you had disobeyed your mother, and she were angry with you, would you run away from the house in the night, and choose rather to starve or die of cold than ask her forgiveness?"

Amy was silent.

"And if your mother could not bear to see you in want, and were to come out to you in the cold night with food and kind words, would you turn away from her and say, 'I know she can never love me, I have been so naughty;' and would you refuse to receive her kindness, and ask her forgiveness?"

Amy bent down her head.

"Pride and ingratitude," said Amy in a low voice.

"And when the Lord Jesus says to you, 'You have sinned against me and wronged me, and broken my laws; but I have come down from heaven to earth to seek you; come back to me, and I will receive and forgive you,' would it be humility or pride to say, 'Thou canst not forgive me, I am too sinful; but wait a little while, and I will do something good, and make myself better, and then I will come back to thee'?"

"God does only love good children, Amy," said Mrs. Mordaunt very seriously, "and God knows you cannot be good." Amy looked up in wonder.

"Who was Jesus Christ, Amy?"

"The Son of God," said Amy.

"And what did he become man and come into this world for?"

Amy answered as she had been taught, "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."

"To save whom?"

"Sinners."

"From punishment," said Amy thoughtfully.

"Yes," said Mrs. Mordaunt, "from punishment, and from sin. He came to suffer, that we might be delivered and freely forgiven, and to make us holy. Did it cost him nothing to do this, Amy?"

"He died for it on the cross," said Amy softly.

"He did indeed. And did he suffer all that pain and anguish of mind for nothing?"

Amy did not answer.

"I must not wait until I am better for God to love me, then," said Amy doubtfully.

"Again, do you obey your mother in order to become her child; or do you obey her because she loves you and is your mother, Amy?"

"Because she is my mother," said Amy.

"And will your obedience make you more her child than you are, Amy?"

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